Fox’s Ferguson Coverage Featured Mark Fuhrman Three Times Last Night

The racially discredited Mark Fuhrman is turning into Megyn Kelly’s go-to guy for “neutral” commentary about the racially-charged events in and around Ferguson, Missouri.

Fuhrman, the former policeman whose antipathy for African Americans was made public during the O.J. Simpson trial, has been on Fox News prime time every night this week, mostly on The Kelly File, taking stances on behalf of the white policeman who shot and killed the unarmed African American teen, Michael Brown. Last night, Fuhrman appeared twice during the nine o’clock show and then again during The Kelly File midnight special.

As I’ve previously posted, Fuhrman appeared Monday night on The Kelly File to discuss the shooting death of Brown in Ferguson. There, Fuhrman pronounced Brown “the aggressor.” Fuhrman reiterated the charge in a friendly interview on the Hannity show the next night.

First up on last night’s Kelly File was a report based on an anonymous “well placed source” also described as “very close to the Ferguson police” that was clearly an effort to justify Police Officer Darren Wilson's actions. Fox’s Trace Gallagher sounded like a stenographer as he described Wilson's shooting of Brown:

…We’re told that Michael Brown then started to walk away, prompting Wilson to pull his gun and order Brown to freeze. Brown then raised his hands, turned around and said, quote, “What, you’re going to shoot me?” Which is consistent with what Officer Wilson’s friend Josie said on the Dana Loesch radio show.

Gallagher played the clip of “Josie,” who is merely an “alleged friend” according to the Fox News graphic, and continued:

Our source then says Michael Brown went at the officer who fired six shots, including a final shot to the head. And now we’re told that Officer Darren Wilson is terrified that the grand jury, which began hearing evidence today will make some kind of example out of him and vote to indict.

Gallagher never even suggested that shooting Brown six times may have been excessive or that the vaguely-worded manner in which Brown “went at” the officer would likely be a crucial factor in determining whether the officer’s behavior was justified.

At any rate, presenting Fuhrman as the expert, who again defended Officer Wilson’s behavior, was not just insensitive but a deliberate slap in the face of African Americans. Even worse, Fuhrman was introduced merely as “Fox News contributor and former L.A.P.D. detective.” Was Fox trying to hide Fuhrman's record or do they just not care? It's hard to know which would be worse.

But that wasn’t enough of an FU to the black community. Later in the same show, Fuhrman was back. This time, he commented on whether Missouri's Democratic governor may have been too partial to African American Brown in his comments.

But wait, there’s more! In the midnight special edition of The Kelly File, Fuhrman was back yet again. Now he was there to comment on another killing of an African American by the police in the same St. Louis metropolitan area.

Kelly went on to host some decent discussions with African Americans, most notably her conversation with Trayvon Martin’s father who gave a great explanation as to why he and other African Americans think highly of Al Sharpton. But surely Fox could find another former police officer to discuss Ferguson, one who isn’t tainted with a documented history of racial antagonism and one whose every appearance doesn’t scream, “We don’t care about African American sensibilities!” to the world at large.

You can watch a video mashup of Fuhrman’s three appearances last night below.

Just curiously, did Fuhrman actually say anything racially suspect, or are we just mad at him in general because he was accused of using bad language when he was a cop?

I heard him on Hannity, and as far as I could tell, he ducked Hannity’s attempts to get him to say something about the African-American community, and basically just vigorously defended police officers.

Fuhrman is a strong conservative whose political views I dislike intensely, but from everything I’ve learned about him, the accusation of racism is, at best, unproved.

I wonder if you know that his partner who worked closely with him on the OJ Simpson investigation was a black man.

As Ralph Edwards said, the denial he got caught in had to do with role-playing he did for this woman that she taped for her presumed novel or screenplay or whatever crap she was working on, a woman he was hoping to have a relationship with and was showing off for.

Last point. Well prior to that, the man asked to be reassigned and went to psychiatric counseling when he found himself developing negative attitudes about a black neighborhood he was assigned to work in. That’s not very common behavior among actual racists.

I don’t think he’s a very nice man, frankly, but the idea that he’s been proven to be some sort of stone racist is entirely unfair, IMO. He was a cop, and a pretty good one. If you read his book about the OJ Simpson investigation, it’s quite fascinating about the way he and his (black, I remind you) partner went about looking at the case, and the damning evidence they found that was never presented at trial because Marcia Clark wanted to concentrate on other aspects of the case.